Inhalation of chemicals can lead to local effects such as respiratory irritation, and acute and chronic inflammation. To date, there are no specific guidelines to identify respiratory irritants. The respiratory irritancy potential of chemicals is typically assessed and extrapolated from modified rodent acute inhalation toxicity studies. These studies use a large number of animals (up to 42 rodents for a single study) and have significant animal welfare concerns.

Dr Sylvia Escher (Fraunhofer ITEM, Germany) in collaboration with Dr Andreas Karwath (University of Birmingham) will develop a user-friendly Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship (QSAR) tool to reliably predict the respiratory irritancy potential of single chemicals and mixtures in humans, allowing the early identification of potential toxicities in candidate chemicals without having to use in vivo studies.

Full details about this CRACK IT Challenge can be found on the CRACK IT website.